


Another Blasted Takeover

by speculating



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Complete, Humor, Improbable Circumstances, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Slash, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speculating/pseuds/speculating
Summary: The Enterprise is taken over again, and this time it's up to McCoy and an injured ensign to come to the rescue.
Originally published in Spiced Peaches, Issue XLV, 17 June 2016.





	Another Blasted Takeover

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve taken liberties with the design of the _Enterprise_. I have no idea if replicator maintenance tubes exist in starships, or little repair drones to fit inside them, but I needed them for the story, so here they are. The setting doesn’t matter. I intended it for some point in season 2, but you can imagine it during the second five-year mission if you’d like, or even in the reboot universe, as it really doesn’t make any difference

_How the hell do I end up in these situations?_ McCoy thought as he crawled through the tiny maintenance shaft. _Why couldn’t it have been Jim or Spock or Scott? At least one of them would have a clue what the hell they were doing. I’m a doctor, not a goddamn gerbil. Who designs these things, anyway?_

He was heading for the crew quarters by way of the galley. The Jeffries tubes had a frequent tendency to empty out into corridors, and there might be Trippy Kudos patrolling the corridors--or whatever the hell they were called. Spock had probably said it eighty times in the briefing, but McCoy still had no idea how to say it, or how to spell it, come to that. There was a glottal stop and some kind of a clicking sound in there, and maybe a little chirp or something. Plus, Spock got that really annoyed look (although, naturally, he pretended he wasn’t annoyed) every time McCoy called them “Trippy Kudos,” so he stuck to his guns.

This was much smaller than a Jeffries tube, meant for non-routine repairs on the even tinier tubes that fed the replicator stations. Usually, small repair drones were sent in--it wasn’t designed for a human being to pass through. This was very evident to McCoy, who had spent the last hour or so (Spock would have known down to the millisecond how long) squeezing through tight turns and ripping his clothing free of the little hooks the drones used to stabilize themselves when they paused.

McCoy was just hoping he made it to his destination, hoping frightened little Ensign Surrender (unfortunate name, that, particularly under the current circumstances) hadn’t steered him wrong; hoping he hadn’t miscounted the access ports or missed a turn. He was tired and scratched up and filthy with grease, and his mood was only getting worse with each squirmed inch--and, as far as he could tell, he was the crew’s only hope.

.

\--------------------

.

It had seemed like a routine distress call from a post-space flight, pre-warp society. They’d had some Federation contact before, always on friendly terms, although according to Spock, the Trippy Kudos had expressed regret during each interaction that the Federation’s non-interference directive prevented them from sharing their warp capabilities with the advancing society. The distress call claimed that something was going wrong with their planet and they needed immediate assistance. Jim, of course, would have gone charging to the rescue even without Starfleet’s order, and McCoy hadn’t been able to detect anything amiss. Only Spock seemed troubled. In the briefing room, he’d clasped his hands together and frowned a bit, a little furrow appearing between his eyebrows and his mouth tightening in a way that made McCoy sit up and take notice. However, since he didn’t seem to have an arm-long list of logical reasons why, he’d only said something about being wary and let it go.

_For once he gets a hunch,_ McCoy thought grouchily, panting as he struggled not to slide back down a steep grade. _And of course, the damned Vulcan doesn’t_ believe _in hunches, so he says nothing. And he just_ has _to be right, too._

Because of course it had been a trap. The Trippy Kudos were having a problem with their planet, all right--they had flooded the damned thing and needed a quick escape. At the time, McCoy had been dealing with the fallout from a small fire in the galley--caused by hapless Ensign Surrender, from what he could gather--so he still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened.But somehow or other, the Trippy Kudos had taken over the ship and were now steering it away from Federation space. According to the ensign’s information, the crew had been disarmed and were locked up in one of the rec rooms under a full guard (a tight squeeze for nearly four hundred people), and most of the senior officers and department heads were in the brig.

McCoy and Ensign Surrender had still been in the galley, as the ensign’s burnt leg was bad enough that he’d been trying to control her pain before transporting her to Sickbay. The other galley staff hadn’t returned because the repair crews hadn’t had a chance to come in yet. By some miracle, despite having full access to the ship’s computers, the Trippy Kudos either didn’t know the galley was there, didn’t know what it was for, or assumed there wouldn’t be any humans inside. Whatever the reason, they hadn’t come blasting through the door.

Ensign Surrender was new and young, and replicators were her only expertise at this point in her career. She definitely wasn’t who McCoy would have chosen to be stuck in this sort of emergency with. It became clear that there _was_ an emergency after they heard the red alert and then phaser fire in the corridors, followed by an eerie silence--and _not_ an announcement from Jim, like there should have been.

“Dr. McCoy?” the ensign said tentatively after a while.

He grunted in response, busy listening for any noise at the door.

“If you want, I could hop on the computer and see if I can find out what’s going on? I mean, the briefing report said that this race is well known for keeping meticulous records of everything they do, so chances are, there will be something on the computer.”

McCoy looked up then, eyeing her with suspicion. “I thought you were a replicator specialist?”

Surrender smiled sheepishly. “Back home I got a reprimand and probation for hacking a Starfleet database. My probation officer suggested joining the Fleet instead, when I was old enough. They don’t trust me near a computer yet, I guess.”

He frowned. “Well, there’s no way I’d get anywhere with that blasted thing, and we can’t just sit in here waiting ’til the end of time. Have at it, Ensign.”

She grinned, although it turned to a wince as he helped her stand and hop on one leg to the computer terminal. She almost immediately relaxed when she started giving the computer commands and tapping the screen, though. McCoy struggled to keep up as she rattled off commands.

“They changed the security codes, so I’m breaking them,” Surrender said when he asked just what in blazes was happening.

“Oh.”

He was impressed despite himself, although it did nothing to shake his conviction that he’d be much happier stuck here with Spock than a green, wounded ensign.

“It…Doctor, it looks like they’re logging their communications with each other,” she said after a few more minutes of searching. “They’re logging it in what they obviously think is some kind of high security file, a ‘continuing history’ of their species, according to the description.”

McCoy frowned. “Why would they do that?”

“Well, uh, didn’t the briefing report say that the tr’pic--the aliens venerate the past and consider historians and scribes to be almost divine? I mean, it’s been fading in recent years, but old habits are hard to break, right?”

He smiled grimly at her attempt to pronounce their unpronounceable name. “Your guess is as good as mine. Hard to read the report when people keep setting each other on fire.”

Surrender’s ears reddened and she refocused on the screen.

“The, uh, the crew is being held under guard in Rec Room 3,” she reported after another few minutes. “A heavy guard, it looks like. Except the senior officers and department heads--they’re all in the brig.”

McCoy leaned forward, peering at the screen over her shoulder. “Any guards there?”

“Two, but only at the entrance to the security area. It looks like they’re trusting the force field to keep them in there.”

He snorted. “They’ve never met Jim Kirk.”

Surrender tilted her head. “Wait a minute…. Doctor, Mr. Spock isn’t with the others!”

McCoy’s heart jumped into his throat and he had to swallow it down. “Where is he?”

“Just a minute, it’s buried in with these engine reports….” She scrolled a bit more. “It looks like they stunned him with a phaser at point blank range to the stomach, and they’ve put him in his quarters under guard.”

_Now_ his heart felt like it might hammer its way out of his chest. He snatched up his medkit and checked its contents before strapping it to his hip.

“Is there a way to get from here to there without being seen?”

She blinked at him, nonplussed. “Well--yes, but sir? Wouldn’t it be better to head down to the brig area and free the others?”

McCoy quirked a brow at her. “Are any of them injured?”

“Not that the aliens have recorded, Doctor, but--”

“Spock _is_ hurt, more than likely, so that’s where I’m headed.”

There were several different possibilities when a Vulcan took a phaser stun to the stomach. Most of them were benign, easily fixed, but there was a chance that his heart had taken the brunt of the shock….

“But, Doctor, isn’t our first priority freeing the ship? Wouldn’t it make more sense to free the other officers first?”

He scowled at her. Spock would have had a logical retort, but at the moment, McCoy could only think of one. Well, one _besides_ his not-logical and most likely unwelcome and not at all platonic worry for their resident Vulcan.

“Ensign, my first priority is the health and wellbeing of this crew. You’re as good as I can make you right now, but Mr. Spock is injured and may be dying. _That’s_ my first priority. You just tell me how to get there.”

A more seasoned officer would have stood up to him and insisted on the ship being the first priority. Ensign Surrender was not more seasoned; she wilted under the force of his anger.

“Yes, sir.”

She found the way and reported the directions to him without further urging. McCoy helped her hide in the supply closet at her request, double-checked to make sure her condition hadn’t changed, and began this long, arduous crawl.

“Damned Vulcan,” he muttered to himself as he negotiated another turn that was most decidedly not designed for a human spine. “Better be grateful, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

Spock, like McCoy, didn’t have a replicator in his quarters--only the captain rated such a privilege--and that was where things had the potential to get dicey. There was a possibility that he’d be caught leaving Jim’s quarters and entering Spock’s, exposed in the corridor for longer than he’d have liked. There was a possibility that there would be guards, inside or outside Spock’s quarters, or both. There was even a distinct possibility that the Trippy Kudos leaders were squatting in Jim’s quarters, and that would be the end of his foray. Probably not his life, since they had injured but not killed anyone (yet), but he didn’t really want to gamble on that.

With that in mind, he waited quite a while at the end of the maintenance tube, listening and hoping it wasn’t just really well sound-proofed. There was nothing but silence, besides his labored breathing, anyway.

_Here goes nothing._

Carefully, he eased the panel away from the wall. Jim’s quarters were dark and silent--and most importantly, they were empty. McCoy gave himself permission to breathe again, for a moment.

A moment too long, as it happened: there was nothing to grab hold of as he pulled himself out of the tube, and there was a loud crash when he tumbled out of it, head over heels. Immediately after, there were voices in the corridor.

_Dammit!_

His heart lodged in his throat, he scrambled to his feet and slid to the side of the door, pressing himself against the wall as his fingers slid his hypo out of its case and snapped a sedative into place without him really having to think about it.

The first Trippy Kudos--typical for his species, tall, burly, blue-skinned humanoid--barreled through the door and came to an unsteady halt, squinting in the gloom. He opened his mouth--

\--McCoy eased him to the floor as the sedative took near-immediate effect. He resumed his position and took care of the second guard as quickly and easily as the first. His heart wouldn’t quit hammering, despite the ostensible end of the danger, but his fingers were sure as he disarmed them and took their communicators.

_Most cultures send guards in pairs,_ a voice that sounded _annoyingly_ like Spock supplied as he peeked out of Jim’s doorway. The corridor did appear to be empty.

_Always gotta be right, don’t you, Spock?_ Then he growled at himself. _Even in my head I’m arguing with you._

Unlike Spock, the voice didn’t respond.

McCoy held his breath as he stepped out into the corridor and keyed the lock on Jim’s quarters. No alarms tripped, no other voices echoed to him. A. All was silent and still. He padded down the hall as quietly as he could, peering before and behind often. When he reached Spock’s door, it was still all quiet. He was alone.

The door was locked, but it easily opened when he manually keyed in his medical override. The buttons behind the panel let out a noisy beep with each press, making him wince as he imagined Trippy Kudos hearing it and making a beeline for his position. None appeared, though, and he slipped inside Spock’s quarters with a sigh of relief. He relocked the door behind him before hurrying to Spock’s side.

He was unconscious, draped uncomfortably sideways across the bed. McCoy took a moment to arrange him better before running a scan, his chest constricted as he waited for the results. Seconds seemed like hours.

Then his shoulders slumped.

“Goddamned hobgoblin,” he muttered fondly, selecting the appropriate hypo.

As luck would have it, the Trippy Kudos had hit a nerve with their phaser stun--literally. It was easily repaired with a small dose of nerve booster, so McCoy didn’t even bother to get comfortable while he waited for it to take effect.

Spock’s eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright.

“Whoa, hold on there! You’ve been unconscious for over an hour--take it easy for a moment, will ya?” McCoy scolded him, taking ineffectual hold of his arm.

Spock blinked at him, his brows knitting with confusion. “Doctor? How did you--” He paused, looking McCoy up and down. “You are in greater disarray than normal. You are covered in grease.”

McCoy snorted. “You’re welcome. I s’pose there’s no need to ask if you remember what happened?”

“The Tr’pic;k’dose have taken over the ship. They took advantage of Starfleet Regulation 34--”

“Spare me,” McCoy said, handing over one of the phasers he’d collected. “A present from one of your guards. Any idea what we do now?”

Spock took the phaser almost absently. “None, Doctor.”

McCoy barked out a laugh. “Great! I went through hell to rescue your ungrateful green ass, and you don’t even have a plan for getting us out of this. Guess I should’ve taken my chances busting into the brig to get Jim.”

“The captain’s gift for strategizing in difficult circumstances such as these would be most helpful,” Spock agreed. “However, for the present, it would be more helpful if you could update me on the current situation. When last I was aware, the Tr’pic;k’dose--”

“The Trippy Kudos have everybody locked up,” McCoy said, and smothered a grin at the disapproving look Spock shot him. “The lower ranks are smashed up in Rec Room 3, and the department heads and senior officers are all in the brig. All of ’em except you--was it the ears, or couldn’t they figure out how to shut you up?”

Spock’s frown deepened. “I reminded them strongly of one of their gods of death. They were most alarmed, and seem to have determined that keeping me contained separately was the most logical course of action.”

McCoy allowed that grin then, rocking on his heels. “It was the ears.”

He sighed. “Doctor, focus, please.”

McCoy pouted a bit, but obediently forced his mind away from his favorite pastime. “The assets at our disposal are these phasers, those two communicators, this room, the galley, and Ensign Surrender, who’s _in_ the galley, although she’s probably not much use. She’s got a badly burnt leg that I have to get her to Sickbay for--sooner rather than later would be my distinct preference, but unfortunately it’ll have to wait until we can get rid of these Trippy bastards.”

Spock raised a brow. “Quite.”

“Ensign Surrender got on the galley computer terminal for me, which is how we figured out you’d been separated from the herd, so to speak. By Surrender’s estimate, there are around a hundred Trippy Kudos aboard--apparently, they weren’t interested in saving a viable portion of their population, just themselves,” he added, trying to tamp down on his outrage.

Spock didn’t comment on that piece, which stoked McCoy’s rage further, but he forced it down, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t that Spock didn’t care--he didn’t want anyone to die any more than McCoy did--it was just that he was focused on the moment. He called it logic; McCoy called it compartmentalization. In this instance, he had to agree that it was necessary to prioritize getting the ship back. They had absolutely no chance of saving any other surviving Trippy Kudos if they couldn’t get control of the ship.

“Did the ensign note her computer activity being monitored?”

McCoy frowned. “Well, no, I don’t think so. It didn’t look to me like anyone noticed, anyway.”

Spock nodded to himself and swung his legs off the bed, crossing swiftly to his own computer terminal. “If they did not note the ensign’s activities, then I should have no trouble evading them, if they _are_ monitoring.”

“I think they’re pretty confident that they’ve got everything buckled down,” McCoy agreed, taking a position behind Spock where he could see what he was doing--see, if not necessarily understand.

The screens flashed by so quickly that McCoy didn’t have the first clue what Spock got out of it, but after a moment, he spoke, still watching the flashing screen and typing something here and there. His ability to multitask was one of the things McCoy lov--found extremely frustrating about him.

“I fail to understand your choice in liberating me, rather than attempting to free the officers in the brig,” Spock said, his tone betraying nothing, as usual.

McCoy bristled. “Well, uh…. You were alone, so it didn’t seem likely there’d be heavy guards or anything….”

Spock raised a brow without looking up from the screen. “The ensign must be worse with computers than Starfleet standards allow. I see here that the brig is guarded by only one pair of Tr’pic;k’dose, and they are not in the immediate area of the brig. It would have been possible to evade them.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. Great, now Spock was going to demote the poor kid, just because he couldn’t control his emotions.

“It wasn’t the ensign’s fault. She told me all that already. And she got me here, didn’t she?”

Spock finally looked up, both brows rising toward his hairline. “Indeed? And yet you still chose to come here instead of taking the logical course of action and seeing to it that the senior officers were liberated?”

McCoy knocked his knuckles against the desk, looking around to avoid Spock’s eyes. “I don’t see how that’s more logical. Wouldn’t more people loose have alerted the Trippy Kudos faster?”

“That is a legitimate risk. However, I fail to see what the two of us and an injured ensign might accomplish that almost the entirety of the officers could not have accomplished with greater ease and speed. The chances of success were nearly quadrupled if you had--”

“And leave you half dead?!” McCoy barked, his temper snapping. “Are you out of your Vulcan mind? It was a simple fix just now, but do you have any idea how bad the damage could have been if you’d been without treatment for even six hours? You could have died! Or at the very least been paralyzed!”

When he dared to look down at him, Spock did not seem as impassive and unimpressed as he usually did when McCoy had an “emotional outburst.” Nor did he seem annoyed or disturbed. McCoy couldn’t quite read his expression--he’d never seen it before, and Spock’s eyes had an odd sort of gleam or sparkle in them….

“Anyway, it’s done now. I’m here, you’re here, and now we’ve gotta figure out what to do,” he grumbled, breaking eye contact again.

“Indeed,” Spock said, cool as a cucumber like always. “I believe, based on this information, that I have a plan. Assuming, of course, that the Tr’pic;k’dose you dispatched are still out of action.”

McCoy groaned. “Don’t tell me….”

“You and the ensign showed remarkable ingenuity in your choice of route. It will prove most useful once again as we make our way to deck two. There is another replicator maintenance tube close enough to the bridge that I believe we may enter quite easily, with the element of surprise on our side. If we can take control of the bridge, it will be a simple matter to cut power to the security area’s force fields. The captain will, I trust, take it from there.”

He sighed, but followed Spock out anyway. The Trippy Kudos guards were still unconscious, so it was no trouble to cross to the maintenance tube.

“After you, Mr. Spock,” he said unhappily. “What makes you so sure we can take control of the bridge, anyway?”

“There are only two Tr’pic;k’dose guarding it at the moment. It would seem to be the Tr’pic;k’dose night cycle. Those who are not guarding are sleeping.”

McCoy rolled his eyes. “Oh.”

_Always gotta be right._

.

\-----------------------

.

With their phasers and the element of surprise, it really was easy to take control of the bridge and cut the power to the force fields. Jim didn’t let them down, either--it seemed he’d been waiting for Spock to make a move and already had the senior officers in the brig ready to take action at a moment’s notice. McCoy didn’t get to know what all went down right away on _that_ , either, because one of the Trippy Kudos they’d stunned had woken up and proceeded to slam him into the bridge railing, head-first, repeatedly. He wasn’t very happy about being stunned, apparently.

McCoy woke up in Sickbay with a blinding headache, a sudden panic to get back to Spock, and a hovering head nurse.

“Dr. McCoy! Lie down this instant!”

He brushed her hands away and continued to try to sit up despite the pain. “Spock--”

“Mr. Spock is perfectly fine, unlike you,” Chapel said sharply. “You need to lie down and you need to sleep. You have a concussion that Dr. M’Benga worked very hard to repair. You need to rest and let yourself heal, _not_ get up and undo all his hard work.”

Since his head felt like it would split in two if he remained in his current upright position, he reluctantly allowed her to help him ease back down on the biobed, which began beeping as though to scold him.

“Spock’s all right?” A lightbulb went off. “And Ensign Surrender--she was in the storage closet and her leg--”

“She was found shortly after the ship was retaken and Dr. M’Benga treated her leg, too,” Chapel said with a sigh, silencing the biobed console and gesturing behind her. “Unlike you, _she_ is an obedient patient and is sleeping. She will be back on duty tomorrow.”

“Oh. We got the ship back, then.”

Chapel gave him a stern look, but he could see the relief she was trying to hide. _I must have been in worse shape than I thought._

“Yes, Doctor. We got the ship back and everyone is fine except you. You need to sleep so you can join the proud list of the active roster.” She waved a hypo. “Don’t make me sedate you.”

He (rather grouchily, it must be admitted) gave up and went back to sleep.

The next time he woke, it was dim for the night shift, and there was a Vulcan holding his hand.

Well, not _holding_ , exactly, but touching it. For a Vulcan, it amounted to the same thing.

“Did I disturb you, Doctor?”

McCoy cleared his throat, which seemed a little froggy for some reason. “Uh, no. Did you need something?” Adrenaline shot him upright in the bed. “You feel all right? Did you feel palpitations or something? Any twinges?”

Spock turned his reaching hand aside and nudged him to lay down again, but his expression was gentle. “I am well, Doctor. Dr. M’Benga finished repairing the lingering damage earlier.”

“Oh.”

McCoy noted that Spock hadn’t let go of his hand, but decided not to say anything. If he said something, Spock would let go and probably leave, and he didn’t want that.

“How is your head?” Spock asked stiltedly.

He smiled despite himself. Concern--or at least the expression of it--did not come easily to Spock. He must have been worried. _Worried,_ McCoy thought with a warm little thrill of pleasure. _About me._

“My head’s fine, now. Hurt like the blazes earlier, but the meds are working, and sleep always helps.”

“That is….” _Spock groping for words. There’s something you don’t see every day._ “I am…pleased to hear it.”

McCoy opened his mouth to tease him. The words were right there, waiting to be said. _Pleased, Mr. Spock? Isn’t pleasure an emotion?_

There was something…vulnerable in Spock’s face that stopped him. And it occurred to him that Spock had almost looked _hopeful_ , back in his quarters, before they stormed the bridge together. That was the gleam he’d seen in Spock’s eye: _hope_. It shone at him now, but coupled with a touch of anxiety. In a human, this was hardly an open declaration, but for a Vulcan?

McCoy smiled and turned his hand palm up. “Miss Chapel wouldn’t tell me what happened after I got knocked out,” he said softly, his own heart thumping with hope and nerves.

Spock’s eyes flickered to the biobed readings and back to McCoy, then lit with understanding.

His fingers interlaced with McCoy’s.

“Since you missed the official debriefing, I will update you,” he said, but the words were warmer than normal.

McCoy missed most of it anyway, too focused on listening to the quiet peace and happiness in Spock’s voice to take in the actual words. Ah, well. He didn’t really care all that much about what had happened with the Trippy Kudos anyway.

.

The End

.


End file.
